3 wheel mame setup

[Anutty]

I am building a 360 wheel mame with a super off road utlizing all original controls, pedals, and monitor. Will be pc based. Looking for advise on best option for input controllers and mame version with 3 wheels, pedals, etc. Ideally a all in one like uhid would be great but not sure it supports. Stricly 360 games and I would like to use button for shifting in games like pole position.

[PL1]

I am building a 360 wheel mame with a super off road utlizing all original controls, pedals, and monitor.

You will need a full-size U-HID or maybe several arduinos to handle all of the controls.

First step is to list all of the original inputs/controls.
3 ea. - Coin inputs
3 ea. - Player buttons (1 for each player)
3 ea. - 360 degree (optical) steering wheel
3 ea. - Analog (potentiometer) pedal

Next step is to list the required connections -- you may want to add more admin buttons, but these are the minimum connections.

Coin switches and player buttons
- 6 inputs plus daisy-chained ground (7 pins)

Optical steering wheels
- 5v, ground and 2 data lines per wheel (4*3 = 12 pins)
- Each optical circuit has 2 LEDs and 2 photodiodes that will draw around 30-40mA (?) per wheel

Analog pedals
- 5v, ground, and wiper per pedal (1+1+3 = 5 pins)
- You can daisy-chain the 5v lines and the ground lines since there is only 1mA current draw through each 5k potentiometer
------------
As with any conversion project, please don't maim for MAME.
- Try to keep any modifications fully reversable in case someone eventually wants to restore the cab back to original.


Scott

[baritonomarchetto]

As a minimum you have, per player
- 1 coin switch
- 1 start button
- 1 turbo/shifter button
- 1 accel pedal (analog)
- 1 optical wheel (2 digital switches)
So 6 inputs per player, one of which analog.

But your project asks also for an audio amp (no problems) and some video amplification and monitoring if you plan to keep the CRT (and you should).

As far as I know there's not a commercial product with all those functions at the same time, but a custom PCB would be definitely doable.  If you could live without coin switches (by inserting the coin with buttons combinations, i.e pressing turbo button while keeping start pressed) you could handle everything with an arduino leonardo, a video amp circuit and an audio amplifier circuit.

Also, with a custom PCB we could connect directly the cab connectors (likely 0.1 inch spacing) without the need for cutting cables or realizing custom adapters.

If only one of those cabs was in my garage... 

With what we already have you can handle all your inputs with a U-HID (I think), amplify your audio with a cheap amp, but your are "alone" with the video signal amplification and CRT "protection". Again, it would be possible to realize a simple PCB (arduino based) for that function alone, anyway.

[PL1]

- 1 start button
- 1 turbo/shifter button

AFAIK there is no separate Start button.

MAME only shows one player button.



Looks like the two "NITRO" buttons per player are wired in parallel.
https://www.arcade-museum.com/manuals-videogames/S/SuperOffRoad.pdf
- Control test screen (Figure 4 on pg 19) doesn't show a separate start button.
- P5 diagram on pg 13 and schematics on 42 only show Nitro.
- P4 diagram on pg 12 shows one service button and one "LEFT QB START (TO P51)", but I'm not sure what that second line does or what it is connected to.   


Scott

[baritonomarchetto]

I was assuming the two buttons where start and nitro. It's well likely that nitro buttons serves as start button too... and this would confirm a leonardo would suffice for this project.
A board like Earthshaker (with some modifications on the connector side being that SOR jamma is not) could do the job if you can live without service and test switches

[Anutty]

Thanks for all the input. You are correct my goal it to keep it so I or someone can revert it back to original form if wanted at some point. I figured the monitor would be the tricky part but definetly want to keep it. Ill start going down the rabbit whole from here.

[n3wt0n]

All the original functionality of a super off-road was obtained in this forum post...

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,151077.msg1657678.html#msg1657678

It is using SailorSat's Arduino Sketch on anArduino Mega plugged into a computer running windows XP. (I am currently upgrading my computer to windows 7, lol).
For additional buttons you would have to edit the Arduino sketch but I think it is do-able.